Why is Journalism Important?

This week on September 13th, 2017, Dan Rowe, the head of Humber College’s Journalism Program spoke to our Journalism Fundamentals course about the importance of journalism.

‘The Oshawa Times’ was the main point of our discussion. The Times was a local newspaper which ran for over 100 years and has been missing from our community for over 20 years. We spoke about this newspaper and the impact it had on the society that surrounded it.

Dan Rowe has been doing a research project about the impact in which ‘The Oshawa Times’ had on the society in its city. These points made me think about the current state of our society. I wondered about the impact our current media and news have on our society.

I have realized in local news, there is less and less coverage on the important news. Local news has become more fluff, rather than factual news. We don’t talk about the nitty gritty aspects of society. The questions that people are dying to know and want answered, are never even asked. We have stories that talk about current situations and events that are occurring in the area, but there’s no real meat to sink your teeth into.

For example, when my father was in high school and The Challenger space shuttle exploded, the front page of the ‘Oshawa This Week’ was a recipe for the ‘perfect potatoes’. For a more modern take, Hurricane Irma just occurred and devastated Florida and the Islands, and the Thursday September 14th front page of the Oshawa This Week is “Thousands of drivers nabbed in school zones”. The front page still carries the same traits when anything important happens in the world or rather our communities.

The Oshawa Times presented the community with real life news from the community, and then it was taken away, leaving us without any real news to help us create discussion and connect our communities over societal importance.

I found I have never fully appreciated how important news is to our communities. We need to be more informed on topics which aren’t full of so much fluff and rather more political views, crime and more. I know it is important to support each other and come together as a community, so we should learn about current events, but we should also speak about things are more difficult to discuss, like tragedies which may occur in the communities.

While ‘The Oshawa Times’ was a community newspaper that spoke about community events and occurrences, I find it spoke with a certain rawness and realness which I believe should carry over to current newspapers such as ‘Oshawa This Week’.

Overall, I do agree with Dan Rowe’s points on how important journalism is, especially to our society. In small towns and communities, journalism helps glue everyone together. Journalism helps people connect and creates discussion in a society where right now discussion is a very important factor in our lives.

I believe we need more ‘The Oshawa Times’ newspapers and less ‘Oshawa This Week’.